I have every objection to this Tory snob pimping himself, his party and the conduct of this country’s affairs to a foreign oligarch, whose interests must ineluctably be very different from any possible form of the interests of British voters.

For a very long time, the core mission of the Tory Party has been to protect and further the economic and social interests of about five thousand vastly over-privileged families in this country. Notwithstanding laws which seemingly make it impossible, people like the Duke of Westminster have person fortunes of billions of pounds.

Nobody can say that these people have been notably successful in their ‘management’ of the British economy. The same goes for the class-based managers in the economy more generally.

We’ve just had Blair invoking “National Security” to protect the Saudi regime and its British glove-puppets (including the odious Mark Thatcher) from investigataion by the Serious Fraud Office. No doubt more of these “donations” (in fact, influence-peddling) will come to light.

It is especially ironic to see advocates of “National Self-Determination” for Britain defending these Tory influence-peddlers.

Me too, however, my point is that New Labour and Blue Labour are becoming indistinguishable in their conduct and their complete divorce from any public and / or national interest. Sean Gabb’s categorisation of the “Enemy Class” is quite correct. Peter Oborne among others has written books coming to similar conclusions, although I suspect Dr Gabb worked it out first.

Whether it is an old Etonian on one front bench or a champagne socialists on the other is really of very little significance in the great scheme of things. In the Deripaska case, Mandelson is far deeper in than Osborne, for the very obvious reason that Mandelson was a major EU Commissioner.

The depressing thing, given the conduct and ideology of our rulers, is that we live in only a potential democracy.